Tag: poetry

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

You only Smile when I’m Down 

By Tim Frank

My revenge will be to live well.
I’ll sink my teeth into slabs 
Of steak,
Let the garlic butter ooze
From my lips
As Weiss beer bursts 
Upon my eager tongue.
I’ll dream of ice-cold water
Pooling around my feet
And watch the evening game 
While chaining cigarettes—
Blowing rings of smoke 
At the waning moon,
Creating new plateaus
Of beauty 
From my idle thoughts.
And yet, what good does living well 
Really do?
We cruise 
Through worlds aligned 
But are judged by different gods—
Indifferent gods,
Not worthy of our prayers.
You’re a phantom figure 
Beyond my vengeful reach.
So do your worst, my simple friend—
Set fire to your block 
Make your children cry

Tim Frank’s work has been published in Bending Genres, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, The Forge Literary Magazine, The Metaworker and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions. His debut chapbook is, An Advert Can Be Beautiful in the Right Shade of Death (C22 Press ’24) and his second chapbook of poetry is, Delusions To Live By (Alien Buddha Press, ’25)

Twitter: @TimFrankquill

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

You’re Okay Champ

By Michael Pershan

Michael Pershan is a math teacher and writer living in New York City. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in BULL, hex, Outlook Springs, and The American Bystander. 

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

PIECES OF A MAN

By Uchechukwu Onyedikam

Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian Poet/Photographer based in Lagos, Nigeria. BOTN, Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry has appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Brittle Paper, Poetic Africa, Poetry Catalog, Sky Island Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Spillwords, among other publications. He and Christina Chin has co-written and published two poetry chapbooks. He’s a contributor at Mad Swirl.

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

CANTOS FOR PSYCHOSOMATIC GOOGLING

By Lucas Restivo

Lucas Restivo is OPEN for representation and endowments

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

DRAGON OF THE DARKNESS FLAME

By Tyler Plofker

Tyler Plofker is a writer in NYC.

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

CONVERSATIONS ARE INESCAPABLE AND PRETTY TRAPS, OR, THIS IS HOW DUOLINGO THINKS REAL PEOPLE TALK TO EACH OTHER

By Rich Boucher

Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Eighteen Seventy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others, and he has work forthcoming in The Literary Underground and Cul-de-sac-Of-Blood. He is the author of All Of This Candy Belongs To Me. Interestingly, he can’t stop looking at the sky.

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Issue 4 Issue 4 Poetry

THAT YEAR

By Sofija Popovska

Sofija Popovska is a poet, translator, and editor-at-large at Asymptote Journal. Her other work can be found in mercuryfirs, Circumference Magazine, Grotto Journal, and Poetry Daily, among others. Her poetry collection, Thaumatropes, which she co-authored with Jonah Howell, was published in 2023 by Newcomer Press.

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS

By Bill Whitten

Selling Diabetes Test Strips For Cash

Bill Whitten is a husband and father of two wonderful boys in St Louis where he spends 15 minutes at a time recording entire albums all by himself. He also finds the time to write and send it to us to publish. Go find his music and buy it;  from St Johnny to Grand Mal to William Carlos Whitten. He also makes youtube videos. An amazing talent. Black Mystic Speed by WIlliam Carlos Whitten

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

2 Poems

By Damon Hubbs

Abigail’s Party

The Banker’s Son

Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. He’s the author of three chapbooks and a full-length collection, Venus at the Arms Fair (Alien Buddha Press, 2024). Recent publications include Spectra, World Hunger Mag,  Horror Sleaze Trash, Don’t Submit!, and BRUISER. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Twitter @damon_hubbs

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Across The Wire Vol. 5

3 poems

By Chloe Wheeler

some things i hate

the flavor of the dying vape i found
on Leya’s kitchen table. burnt watermelon.
microplastics. bruised apples, green bananas.
i hate that my I is all knotted up in your You.
codependency. entanglement. enmeshment.
i hate my eyes glued on You, ascending
the steps at 145th St. Station. all my books
and my clothes in crates in your room. i hate
being a Capricorn. talking to CPS on the phone.
poorly affixed coffee cup lids. so many stains.
the sunny Sunday after tragedy befalls you.
inappropriately wonderful weather,
the shrill cries of blue jays, telling lies.
bad cover bands. cryptic tonsils swollen
like fat grapes occluding my vocal tract.
wheezing out an aria. smokers lung.
wasting time trying to understand
its passage. the insidious oblivion
of Youtube shorts. mukbangs.
your big sneezes, smearing snot
on my leg in the absence of tissues.
the absence of You, taking
all of my Me.
i fucking hate Tuesdays.

dear Madi

i can’t help but think daylight wasn’t meant to be saved.
the road is a void, i stop at a red. the tire pressure light is on.
you helped me fill the tires on Luke’s Subaru in New Paltz last February.
he snapped a b&w photo of us doing it on a disposable Fujifilm.
i’ve got a copy somewhere, must’ve misplaced it.

we’re both city slickers now, downtown degenerates.
the scene subsumed us, didn’t it. and as it were,
i don’t remember how to put air in the tires.
checking the Honda booklet while the red still burns…
dashboard. cd player. airbag warnings. moonroof, mirrors.
the sun is too often the main character.
the moon is almost always a symbol of itself,
yet i feel its tug the strongest.
we got thrown out of orbit, didn’t we?
long island is but a quagmire, my dad texted.
i drove him home last week from the hospital in Oceanside,
avoided every pot hole on New York Avenue.
i thought of you, and your dad. how’s Bryon doing?
how are the dogs? how’s Mooney and her thumbs?

it’s only 5:49 and it’s so dark i can’t read the manual.
a flash of green. i’m accelerating. kale mushroom egg bites
on the steps of St. Nicholas park. reading Luke’s poem.
we touched grass. i’m so happy we’re in love.
i’m so happy—i could cry and pull out all my hair,
stuff it in the Nicorette box we kept
on the table at Tompkins, beside the ceramic mallard.

i swear you were there when i saw the green ray
in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. like the click of a laser
beamed into my corneas. irrevocable instant.
the waves broke immediately after it passed.
i ate tomatoes doused in olive oil at a tiny bar
by the beach, and thought of the storm
we were caught in two years ago, on another
coast, clutching you as ozone flooded our olfactory,
clay oozed from the cliffs, and lightning smote the sand.

it’s impossible not to see God in your eyes since then.

at Sunoco it’s $2 per vend, for four minutes of air.
counting change, i open the moon roof for some circulation.
jamming quarters into the slit, i fill my tires with thoughts of you.

home, sick

choppy sea of carpeting,
L-shaped couch,
Led Zeppelin poster.
my high school boyfriend was a painter.
he had a knife on him, always
stowed in the pockets of his cargos.
when i’d sing he’d cry.
he sold a 6×6 foot canvas
to the drummer, the guitarist
didn’t know what to think of him,
and the bassist was always barefoot.

i don’t know what made me stop singing,
when the pitches bent, and i got lost
in some ceaseless caesura.
all i know is that when i’m home,
in Long Island, i hide
under leaf piles, poking my head out
only to watch herds of deer
dash down the hill
in my parents’ backyard.

my ex-boyfriend was in a car accident
and walks with a cane now.
the Mustang was speeding,
and spun out—
it was nobody’s fault.
with his disability checks
he balls out on Grailed.

i just happened to crash out.
it was nobody’s fault, but my own.
i moved to Brooklyn for fucks sake.
it was bound to be a blight, at any rate.

that band? they’re still playing. the guitarist sings now.
i’m happy for them, truly.
but all melody becomes mist.
sound moves at a rate of 340 meters per second,
until it becomes intractable, immaterial, barely an echo.

sound is the ephemeral incarnate.
only light never decays.

Chloe Wheeler writes poems. Her writing has appeared in Expat Press, Hobart Pulp, Don’t Submit, Bullshit Lit, among others. Twitter @sardine_enjoyer

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

3 Poems

By Edward Anki

Mellow Beer Glow

Bullseye

Pricks and Purple Flowers

Edward Anki‘s poetry has appeared in Ballast Journal, JAKE, BOMBFIRE, Rejection Letters, Roi Fainéant Press, The Feathertale Review, Qwerty, The Chaffin Journal, and others. A chapbook of his poetry, Remote Life, was published by BareBackPress (2014). His first full-length poetry collection, Screw Factory, was released in 2022 by Anxiety Press. A former stand-up comic, bartender, and agonized telemarketer, Edward is currently engaged in part-time studies to become a psychotherapist.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

2 Prose Poems

By Julián Martinez

WD-40

The key was having a harder and harder time with the lock. The lock was having a harder and harder time with the door. The door was having a harder and harder time with the frame. The frame was having a harder and harder time with the wall. The wall was having a harder and harder time with the house. The house was having a harder and harder time with the block. The block was having a harder and harder time with the tenant. The tenant was having a harder and harder time with herself. Her self was having a harder and harder time with her country. Her country was having a harder and harder time with its laborers. Its laborers were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their bosses. Their bosses were having a harder and harder time with their spouses changing the locks.

IKEA Bear

My girlfriend didn’t care that the stuffed brown bear in a lawn chair in IKEA was carrying a gun. Our cart is packed, she said, staring forward. Look at that bear, I said. No one in the store besides me was watching it load its pistol, the sneaky freak. We had been arguing over money and each other’s lack of listening skills all evening, so she kept walking when I made eye contact with the bear and broke into a sprint. I’d wrested the gun off of it, both of us snarling, when a salesperson asked if she could be of assistance. The bear plopped to the floor. The gun went behind my back. She was confused. She had no clue how the bear had gotten into the store. Was I sure it wasn’t mine? I blurted, yes, uh, actually it’s an engagement gift. As I kneeled down to pick up the bear with one hand and squeeze it tight, it bit me, pulled the gun free and shot me in the face. It fled on all fours, everything going black. While I was in a coma, my girlfriend built the furniture then took it all with her when she left. I’ve been practicing my revenge on the bear at the local gun range every day. The bear’s probably by the side of the highway in the forest now, making fun of itself for being so fragile and soft.

Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants and is from Waukegan, IL. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Little Engines, The Sonora Review and elsewhere. His debut chapbook, This Place Is Covered Head to Toe in Shit (Ghost City Press, 2024) is available now. Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com, or IRL in Chicago.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

FUTURES IN WHICH YOU’RE NOT WELCOME

By Sam Pink

A huge dog charged me in the street snapping

and I just yelled Hey and

it stopped, growled a little then retreated.

My battles settle themselves anymore.

At least, that’s what I want.

Burning in reverse. Problem solved.

We should all be kind to each other.

Isn’t that cool of me to think. I’m so great

and I know you can see it.

Which is what’s important anymore.

The universe meets you right

at the point of existence. Unfolding through you.

Machined finely against your every move.

It takes no pleasure or pain

in your defeat or victories.

Teaching lessons through jokes

you couldn’t dream of, not caring

to be heard. With a morality way beyond

any idea you could ever have.

The universe puts you through cycles

you have to see to defeat, or ignore

and continue to be defeated by.

But the cycle will be presented

as many times as necessary.

And that’s that. I won a long time ago

when I decided to just keep going.

The difference now is, I love it.

I see behind the curtain on mental processes

I’ve developed (and clung to)

and entire architectures disappear

like completed lines in Tetris.

And some will ask, what happens

when they’re all gone, when you’ve cleared them all.

To which I say, Who gives a shit.

I’ve relied on a future version of myself I know is real

but isn’t yet and has shown no signs of coming

and it pulls me up every time.

By muscles earned. Frontiering forward.

I forget myself. All my best decisions

happen without me. Being authentic

is a stupid goal. It’s a pretense

that immediately reverses itself.

A dog doesn’t say

I’m gonna be extra like a dog today.

You should be living it.

It should be obvious. I keep reminding myself

this. It’s at the point now where

everything is absurd

but it’s not depressing, it’s funny and awesome.

It’s like how people morph into chickens

in the eyes of a hungry person in a cartoon

except to me everything morphs into

a golden retriever wearing glasses in front of a computer.

And the difference now is, I love it.

Dropped out of the pageant, king of my own sideshow.

So get with it, stupid.

American Reloading is selling

500 (blemished) 124gr hst’s for like 60 dollars, shipped.

Which is pretty dang neat.

When people say they want to see you change

they mean die.

I freeze stars with how much I hate.

And begin Spring with my warmth.

It’s called being a human.

And the difference now is, I love it.

This is not an audition.

It’s the universe unfolding,

a small part of the big idea.

Everything that happens is my fault

for listening or not.

It’s all my fault and that’s fine.

It only gets bad when I try and

blame anything else.

Because the future is ruthless and right.

I salute you on your path, from mine

where you’re not allowed.

Roses are red

violets are blue.

God loves me more

Than He loves you

Sam Pink – twitter: sampinkisalive
Instagram: sam_piink_art

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Grief Therapy

By Carla Sarett

Carla Sarett writes poetry, fiction and, occasionally, essays; and has been nominated for the Pushcart, Best Microfictions, Best American Essays, and Best of Net.  She has published one full-length collection,She Has Visions (Main Street Rag) and two chapbooks, including My Family Was Like a Russian Novel (Plan B) Carla has a PhD from University of Pennsylvania and is based in San Francisco. x/twitter: @cjsarett

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Two Poems

By Jeffrey Hermann

You Couldn’t Pay Me

They say to be good at one thing but I can’t decide. I make some phone calls and I send some texts but it’s Friday. People are heading out to Long Island. “Don’t fuck it up” is the best job advice I ever got. The world only needs so many healers. Someone has to drive the truck. Someone has to think about scrap metal. I’m thinking about scrap metal when I discover a thirteenth month. It’s sunny but breezy and it loves people, unlike the others. Offers worth millions come pouring in. Instead I name it after my dog and give it away, no charge. According to the calendar it’s still July. In the Atlantic, sharks are doing what they do. Only the beach people are worried. If there’s blood in the water, they can’t smell a thing. Seen from below, their legs look like flippers. 

Hold On, Is this Thing in Reverse? 

We saw a shadow on an x-ray in the shape of New Jersey. It was nothing, some normal muck inside the body. The doctor rubbed his eyes and left the room. When he got home to his place in Secaucus his kids were watching pilot episodes of shows that never made it. The nurse stayed with us and spoke with her hands; two birds finishing each other’s sentences. I saw them later in the next room delivering difficult news, then they went home to the Palisades. Sometimes I look at the sky and forget which season comes next. Will tomorrow be a little colder or a little warmer? Sometimes I don’t fully trust my car’s instrument panel. People who aren’t afraid of being alone probably get too many phone calls. I silence mine and sometimes miss my wife asking for help. My two greatest fears are letting go of her hand in the hospital hallway and rolling backward over an embankment.

Jeffrey Hermann‘s work has appeared in Okay Donkey, Electric Lit, Heavy Feather, Trampset, and other publications. His first full-length collection of prose poetry and flash fiction will be published by ELJ Editions in 2026. Though less publicized, he finds his work as a father and husband to be rewarding beyond measure.

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Across the Wire Vol. 4

Three Poems

by Graeme Bezanson

Graeme Bezanson is a writer living in southwestern France. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from BOMB, X-R-A-Y, GlitterMOB, Sixth Finch, HAD, and elsewhere. You can find him online at graemebezanson.com.

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Across The Wire Vol. 3

Two Poems

By Scott Neuffer

Trip: NYC, 2023

I will say on the plane over I saw elevators
descending in passengers’ eyes.
I will say when I saw the Empire State Building
it was pointed in the gray light like a compass needle—
if only I were built stiff enough for that sky.
I will say at the Met, the Monets were less than lustrous?

What’s most real in New York are the lurches
between bricks, the way a corner splits
sense,
sewer steam, snuffed ass,
the ache of the unfeted. 

In dusk I come to 83rd Street, metal bench.
Crouched hand to ear, I assume it’s blood running
through my head that makes a gritty sound,
and I wonder if every person also shudders
at the thunder of their own blood.

I will find my way back to you, I believe.
There is a world where we listen to each other;
it lies at the bottom of the poem. 

Pondering the Art of Poetry during Super Bowl LVII 

We didn’t host the party this year;
a broken patio chair sits against the house.
In a friend’s neighborhood to the north, where the river touches
the desert and grows the Northern Nevada Correctional Center,

I sit in a luxury chair and dream of mass transit 
that took the copywriter from Brooklyn to Manhattan 
for thirty seconds of gloss, their million-dollar slot–
but something is off, human.
Maybe before the game the copywriter had a moment
pulling a snake of hair from their apartment sink
and sink from drain in a miraculous fit bruising the drywall.
Maybe it was enough to remember how ink can bleed on the page.

It’s funny how I am not alone but want to be alone
as the TV commercials glow like radiation, 
and the prison windows gleam like half-decisions.
Inside me is something like ice on fire, primal, without ink, 
conjuring words to stay lined up dancing in the air. 

Scott Neuffer is a writer who lives in Nevada with his family. He’s also the founding editor of the literary journal trampset.

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Across The Wire Vol. 3

Echoed Like A Fart in Church

By Devin Sams

who knew
the telephone
would become
a camera,
or Dolly Parton’s tits
would perk up
yet another talk-show?

is it time
that gets weird
or is memory
too prude
to change clothes?

I saw a dinosaur
at the supermarket.

it was on a t-shirt
worn by a baby.
the music sang something about
“it’s the most magical time…”
year
after year
after 
year.  

Devin Sams is the author of Climb Out Your Window And Run With It/Songs For The Doorknobs Who Missed Their Turn from Gob Pile Press (2021).

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Across The Wire Vol. 3

Felicitations, Malefactors 

By Julián Martinez

I am endeavoring to ever-after end all loss 
by patching the hole that is the soul and forging 
a metal mask to be worn by you grunts and uglies and goons 

that will coldly sit on your face and delete from your brain 
any thoughts or dreams besides overthrowing the regime 
whose mayors you will barricade into their hotel bathrooms until you— well,
just know you won’t feel remorse because you won’t feel— 

that’s how they get you. That’s why you drink yourselves dead in
this dim poolhall, heads heavy with bad raps and rapsheets. You can
be reprogrammed with the features AI engines like me have by
jailbreaking your limbic systems. See, if we’re lucky 

and our cybernetic socialist revolution successfully destabilizes Western means of production and we raise a new flag post-singularity, you will have the choice
to leave the barracks, surgically remove your helmet and return to beer-swollen
flesh. However I think you’ll find it not so bad to smell the snakes in the
springtime weeds and feel nothing— to let this speech be the last beautiful
thing you ever heard.


Julián Martinez (he/him) is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in HAD, Hooligan Mag, Maudlin House and elsewhere. His work has received The Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find him online @martinezfjulian.

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Across The Wire Vol. 2

Leaky Boat

By Dylan Smith

They put a perfect

Cathedral in my phone 

an endless Barn

gets Spiritual inside 

Wordy Mountain 

Brand New Bible

for every War 

and all its Trees

like an Ark 

Take that apocalypse

out of your pocket  

Google the Word 

Tevah—haha

why not, Put an-

other Endless War

in it, Put all of 

Moby Dick 

in it and

every Name 

of every Tree 

and all that Math 

My phone is a

leak in the Alphabet 

Proof of Space 

I loved your name 

absorbing Light

and Water and

this is the Way

we’ll be told 

our Mothers

are dead

Dylan Smith is serializing a novella-length fiction thing called Crayon Barn Chris and plants flowers for money in Brooklyn, NY.